Podcast

Hello everybody, this is Jeff Norris, the Wildlife Trapper. On today’s podcast episode, I would like to speak about bats. Yup, flying rats, basically. Rats with wings. However you want to say it, it’s not really the truth, but is common thought amongst people on bats. Bats are very important to our environment. They keep down a lot of mosquitoes, different insects, so they are very important, but there becomes a time with any wildlife that their importance in the ecosystem is not outweighed by their human conflict they’re having by entering structures and such. Bats are one of the big ones. The more you let it go, the worse your problem gets. Never will get better, they’re not going to leave.

I want to go over a few things about myths with bats and so forth. First off, bats run off echolocation kind of like sonar, kind of like radar, but a little different. Kind of like they pick out a frequency and it comes back in 3D to them. With that, they really honed that skill and they can find the smallest of holes. Bats, people say, “oh, the bats are swooping me”, and there’s that and the other.Well, we put off carbon dioxide, and CO2 is an attractant to different things including mosquitoes. A lot of times, the reason why bats are swooping towards you is for a food source, not for you. You are exhaling carbon dioxide, the mosquitoes are drawn to it, thus for you are the mosquito magnet, and the bat’s actually trying to help you by killing mosquitoes. In any amount, still not a comfortable situation for most people even knowing that.

Other dangers of they have is one, super high rabies carriers. If you’re in a house, and this is a protocol that we’ve gotten from the Health Department. If it’s an older person or a child, and I’ll be honest even if it was me, and I have fallen asleep, let’s say I fall asleep and the next morning there’s a bat in my bedroom. That bat’s going to get caught and tested for a rabies virus because their bites can be so small and so minute that you don’t even notice them. That’s why we always recommend with children and elderly, that people with disabilities, that happens that that bat gets tested.

Rabies ain’t no joke and it’s better to be safe than sorry. So you have a bat in your house and you have fallen asleep and you don’t know if you’ve been bitten or not, just get tested. Call us, we can come out, capture the bat, we can take it to the Health Department for you and get the process started. We’re very familiar with it.

If you let the bat escape, then things are a little different. We don’t have a bat to test. Therefore, you’re going to be treated like an exposure and you’re going to have to go through a series of rabies shots. No, they’re not in the stomach no more, but nevertheless, I have not known any one person that’s taken them, either post or pre, that has not gotten sick from them. They make you sick. They’re like having the flu. No fun, not something I would want to do if I didn’t have to, so don’t let the bat out, don’t let anybody smash the bat, kill the bat. Call us, we’ll come out. We do charge a fee, it’s a business, but we’ll come out, we’ll capture the bat, we’ll get it over to the Health Department and get tested for ya. That’s number one.

Number two is all their feces and guano carry, which feces is guano, let’s clear that out of the way. I say guano, I’m referring to bat feces or bat poop or whatever you want to call it, that’s what guano is. Guano is a combination of urine and fecal matter coming out of the same hole because they have what they call a common anus, and it all comes out the same hole and mixes together. So that’s why it’s so sticky and sticks to buildings and stuff, because it’s wet when it hits. The guano, there’s other problems with that. High quantities of it can put people into … it’s a respiratory irritant all by itself. It’s not a pleasant smell. I’ve been in houses where my eyes have burned from it. Proper care should be taken. Universal precautions, a mask, rubber gloves and stuff when cleaning it up. Do not sweep it dry. If it’s dry, wet it down, or even wet it down with a capful of bleach to a gallon of water mixture, which will kill the nasties living in it and you won’t have to deal with it.

What’s the big thing with the guano? Histoplasmosis, number one thing, histo. Funny thing is, two forms of histo, not just one. There’s a respiratory histo, which everybody seems to talk about, and there’s an ocular histo, or histoplasmosis of the eyes, which I’m fortunate enough to have a friend who is a eye doctor and we were having this discussion one time, and I realized how common it was. It’s very common. He says it’s usually from people up North that have it who’ve lived in farm houses and stuff, but he says he sees three or four cases a year just here in the Bradenton area.

That kind of astounds me, I was kind of like wow, I didn’t realize ocular histo was so common. It’s probably more common than the respiratory histo because no matter what, everybody tries to scare you and stuff with histoplasmosis, the fact is, there is no cases I know of in the state of Florida that have been tracked down to histoplasmosis from bats living in a building. Caves? Yes, but not buildings. So the guys running round out there saying ‘oh [inaudible 00:08:06] give me histoplasmosis and stuff. It’s a chance, but it’s very minute. In hundreds and hundreds of years, we have not had any histo transmitted from buildings in Florida, so we can get that off the plate.

Ocular on the other hand does transmit and you need to be careful. You need to use personal protective equipment and constitute universal precautions when dealing with this. Eyewear, mask, gloves, bleach and water. That pretty much stabilizes it, makes it pretty safe to remove. Don’t use the blower. So many times I’ve seen guys that have bats on docks or whatever and they just one of their guys going out there every morning blowing that crap, for less of better terms, off the docks. Well you’re blowing disease everywhere possibly, and it’s just not good, it’s not safe. Wet it down, put it in a pile, show it up, double-bag it, throw it in the dumpster, but don’t blow it, you know use an air blower on it. Man, I just back pack blower or anything, I’ve seen it time and time again. Same way bird droppings, they’re just out there scrubbing it, no universal precautions. Histo’s in birds too, probably more so than bats. You’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to use some brains when cleaning up animal feces and stuff.

Talk about respiratory histo, which produces, from my understanding, like a fungus in your respiratory system. Ocular, I’ve not studied the ocular much, I’m not a doctor, and I guess I have all the information I really need personally on it. Be careful when you’re around it and you won’t get it. Those are my terms. As far as knowing, obviously it affects your eyesight, and maybe I’ll get lucky enough I could have this doctor come on one podcast with me and explain it, that would be kind of cool. That actually would be really cool, so I have to work on that.

Bats and buildings. The urine builds up, the guano, which is the urine and feces build up quickly in buildings. There will be piles of it. It will stain, it will get down into the wood, it will soak in. A lot of the damage that bats do isn’t so much from them, it’s the cleanup. It’s the guano all over the side of a building, it’s their grease marks getting in and out, it’s the guano on the inside, just all those things. Here’s the biggest mistake people make. This is just, I’m going to say it, if you do this, you are an idiot. An absolute idiot, and I will tell you a story why. If you have bats in your house, don’t believe everything you read on the internet or what your friends tell you because your friends probably are not professionals. You cannot go up at night and just fill in the holes, because not all of the bats are out. You might get lucky, but you probably won’t, and then you’ll have dead bats in your house or bats trying to find other exits and end up in your living area and we talked about rabies shots already, right? So don’t do it. It’s not the thing to do. It’s the most uneducated thing you can do with bats. Don’t do it.

Handymen? Handymen, let me tell you something. You’re not licensed to do it, stay away from it. Stop it. You guys don’t know what you’re doing nine out of ten times and we end up coming back and cleaning up your mess and all you’ve done is give the homeowner more grief and I’ll be honest, if I have to come behind a handyman, there’s at least a 25% charge for cleaning up his mess. So in the long run, it’s much more expensive for your customer. Refer them to a professional, keep doing what you’re doing, get the paint job afterward. Get the pressure washing job afterwards. Plenty of work out there, but do not play bat evictor. You will probably not do a very good job and you’re opening yourself up for even criminal penalties because you don’t have a pest control license.

Bats, it’s an easy process. It’s not really rocket science. You’ve just got to get rid of them. Now their season, and this is the reason I’m doing this podcast, their season is closed from April 15th to August 15th. This allows the maternal colonies to have their babies. During such time, the babies are flightless and cannot leave the roost and will die if you exclude the parents. So you put up a bat valve, exclude the parents for a few days, and sealed up, all the babies are inside, they’re going to starve to death, but you know better yet what they’re going to do? They’re going to stink. They’re going to stink horribly. Then you’ll call me out to get all the dead animals out of your walls and stuff, which brings me to my story.

There is a place down in Charlotte County, I won’t mention any names, that had us come out for a quote on getting the bats out of a condominium owned by ex-preachers, or retired preachers, I shouldn’t say ex. Retired clergy. So they have us come out and the whole board’s there and they ask me a bunch of questions and stuff and I probably, trying to explain the process to them, probably gave them more info than I needed to. So by the time I got done, they thought they were experts, and they did an exclusion. Well, they didn’t do it right, and they ended up with bats dead in walls up to three foot deep. It ended up being a several hundred thousand dollar claim if anyone tried to turn into their insurance company. The homeowners said to them said, “I don’t know why they tried to do it, we had a company come out and give a bid”, and I talked to that homeowner and they got one of my cards, and they said, “Yeah, it was this company.”

So the insurance guy calls me and says, “Hey, did you give a bid to this company, or to this project?” And I said yes. He goes, “Can I get a copy of that?” “Yup, sure can.” Now it wasn’t a cheap bid, I think it was $25,000, pretty good size building, a lot of work, lifts, definitely not something that was going to be done in one or two days. About a week project, with several guys on the job. So this guy calls and wants to know about it and I tell him and he tells me he’s an insurance adjuster, and I said oh, okay, you running it through insurance? He goes, “Well we’re trying.” I’m like why? He goes, “You didn’t hear?” I said no.

So he explains what happened, and they basically killed all these bats in the walls, and then they had to pull all the drywall, all the studs, had to put people up in the hotels, it was a mess. It was all done because people half listen and think they know more than everybody and attempt things that they shouldn’t attempt doing. I get homeowners need to do their own little projects around house, I totally get it, but we’re not talking about a raccoon getting a trashcan here. We’re talking about messing with other people’s lives, and their health and trying to pull off a magic act without going to magic school.

That’s what they did, and it was a mess, and they ended up getting their claim denied and the bad thing was, these homeowners who’ve already been out and displaced and everything else are now getting assessed money to pay for the cleanup and renovations of their properties that the assessment would have been a tenth hiring me had it been done right, and the bats would still be alive and these people wouldn’t have to be living in hotels, and these people would have had a normal life from day to day. Except for I might have taken a parking spot for a couple of days with my lift. Other than that, that would be probably the biggest inconvenience they would have had.

If you get what I’m saying is if you don’t know about it, don’t mess with it, don’t think you can educate yourself enough on the internet for it, because I’ll tell you what, if that was the case, I wouldn’t have a job. If those sprinkle things to get rid of raccoons worked or if the ultrasonic devices worked, I would not have a job. I would not be here for 20 years doing this, and I’d be out of business. It’s funny when we see all these little magical things that come on TV like saw one the other day to get rid of raccoons or something. I laugh, and I took a picture of it and posted it on one of the industry forms and said, ‘oh guys, go ahead and close the shops, we’re done. The raccoon ranger or whatever is there now and everybody’s going to buy this.’ Whatever.

Mothballs. Mothballs, another one man. God. Don’t do mothballs. Mothballs will work, but they have to be in high concentrations, and if they’re in that high a concentration, then you’re not going to be able to live there. Taking in fact, I had a lady who had something in her attic up in Sun City. When I walked up to the house I could smell the mothballs, when she opened the door, it floored me. This lady’s sucking for an ounce of air. She’s literally like (gasping) hello. I’m like oh my God. We get her out of the house, find out that okay, who put the mothballs in? Yup, the handyman. Something crazy, like six or seven boxes of mothballs in her attic.

The humidity activates them, they start smelling, wadabam, wadaboom, we all know what happened. Well missy, the lady there ended up in the hospital, had to call her children. Ended up having to have all the insulation replaced in the house and aired out and oh, three machines put in and I don’t think it was a whole lot, about a 12 or 14 thousand dollar expense by the time it was done, they had wrapped up into it and their mother in the hospital.

Why? Because again, got a handyman that doesn’t know what he’s doing trying to perform pest control services without a license and guess what. Hello? That’s why we’re licensed. That’s why we have to have continuing education, that’s why we have to show proficiency. So we don’t do hair brained stupid stuff like this. There you go. I hate to be real, but mothballs are going to keep moths out of your closet. That’s what they’re designed to do, and if you read the label on them, that’s what it says. It doesn’t say it’s going to keep raccoons from pissing in your flowerbed, it doesn’t say it’s going to keep them out of your trashcan, it doesn’t say it’s going to make rats go away.

I got a house right now that we’re trapping rats six inches away from his mothballs that he has left there. I have pictures. It’s hilarious. It’s absolutely hilarious, I have a rat trap right next to the paper plate with the mothballs, and I’m catching rats. Come on. I wish they’d take mothballs off the market. Let the moths live. Moths lives matter. And yeah, that’s my rant for that.

April 15th to August 15th’s the baby season, again, so we’re in the last week of July and we’re gearing up for our bat season to start, and we’ve got several people already with a … it’s on the books to start rip out jobs on August 15th, and we’d like to have more, so if you guys are having a bat problem, free estimate, give us a call, we’ll come out. We’ll give you the low down on what’s going on there and try to help you, and give you an estimate of getting rid of them in a safe and humane manner. That’s all I got, so if you guys have any bat questions, two things we’re getting here in Florida, mostly the Tampa Bay area is the free-tailed bat and the evening bat. I see more free-tails than anything. They’re not the great big African fruit bats that have wing spans of four to six feet, get that out of your head. Unless they’ve escaped from someone, but our bats are small here.

Oh something also I wanted to tell you is here in the near future we have some plans on getting some old pallettes and doing some recycle work and turning them into bat houses and then either donating them to the county or to one of the wildlife societies to be put up around the county, and I’m thinking maybe we can do some cool little project with some kids and we build some bat houses and just have fun. Just have a good fun day with it and make it where you enjoy some time. Maybe we’ll do that with the grand opening of our new office, but build some bat houses. Bat houses do work, they do, you’ve just got to do it right. They will work. It doesn’t happen overnight, but there are some tricks and tips to making bat houses work and we plan on putting on a little seminar with that. Having some fun building some bat houses, teaching some kids about the environment and such and there.

Wish I could think out my sentences, I would get a lot more spoken but it’s a bad habit I need to break. Any other questions, give us a call, 866-263-9453, catch us on the web at WildlifeTrapper.com, Facebook, Facebook.com/wildlife.trapper, and I hope to hear from you all, give us some feedback, subscribe, that’s how we’ve become popular is a few subscriptions and feedback comments. Let us know you’re listening to it, let us know you like it, and stay tuned for some more sessions where we can hopefully help you with human-wildlife conflicts. Thanks. Bye bye.

With over 20 years experience solving urban wildlife conflicts, call Jeff Norris, the Wildlife Trapper for all your nuisance wildlife problems. 1-866-263-WILD. Find us on the web at www.WildlifeTrapper.com also stay up-to-date with local wildlife issues, connect with us on Facebook at Facebook.com/wildlife.trapper, we are your experts for the most humane and technologically advanced solutions to all your wildlife problems. Call now for more information or free inspection 1-866-263-WILD.

Want to talk to you today about feral pigs. Seems to be that we’re getting more and more calls all the time on them. It’s just a ongoing problem here in Florida. The more construction development that happens, the more these pigs are getting forced into neighborhoods and agricultural areas and such. And I just kinda wanted to talk a little bit about hiring someone to track pigs. Kind of guys with our “hiring a professional” series, and just some things to consider for property managers, home owners, and so on, so forth.

Here’s the lowdown: People want things cheap. I get it. I absolutely get it. You don’t want to have to spend money that we normally don’t have to. But here’s the downside of this: If you hire Jimmy Joe Bob in a pickup with a couple dogs and his crossbow or whatnot, it’s not safe, people. It’s not safe. It has liability run all over it. Because if that pig takes off, that dog doesn’t respect property lines or anything else. It’s not the way a professional does it. So we don’t compete with those guys. I’ll be honest with you, I all the time will, “I got so-and-so, they said they’ll come out and catch them for free.” Well, have at it. But make sure that your homeowner’s insurance, or your property insurance is up to date, and that you have plenty of coverage. Because if they accidentally misfire a bow and shoot a cow or a house or a person or a pet or whatever, or if their dog is chasing a hog and decides to get Fluffy, the neighbor’s dog instead … Or for goodness sakes, they’re walking through the yard and they hit your little sprinkler swell and twist their ankle and break their ankle. They’re gonna sue you because they ain’t got workman’s comp. They don’t have any of that.

Hiring these guys that have your “feral hog card” and their NWT number, which I believe is nonexistent at this point in time with fish and wildlife … It’s not good. It’s not a good way to do business. You need to protect yourself in this day and age. You need to make sure that they have liability insurance. Even if it’s a one-man show, make sure he has workman’s comp. He can sit there all day long and say, “Oh, I don’t need workman’s comp, I don’t have that many employees.” And that’s true, by law he doesn’t have to have workman’s comp, but it doesn’t protect the homeowner from him not having workman’s comp. If he gets hurt, he can still sue you. There’s no if, and’s, or buts about it.

For more information and a FREE INSPECTION/ESTIMATE Call 1-866-263-WILD or (941)729-2103. We are your expert for humane and techno advanced feral pig/hog exclusion, trapping and removal in Bradenton, Parrish and surrounding areas.

Trust me, that guy is a construction worker by day, and he’s doing this hog removal at night with a couple of his buddies, and he goes and falls down and breaks his leg and he can’t go to work, and he can’t support his family or anything … And I’ve seen this happen, I saw this happen on an armadillo trap one time. And he can’t support his family or anything, that guy is gonna do whatever he has to do to support his family. And I don’t blame the guy for doing it, I really don’t. You gotta support your family, you gotta take care of them. But the way he’s gonna support his family is off of your insurance. He’s gonna sue your homeowner’s insurance for his broken leg and his loss of wages and all that stuff, and you’re gonna be sitting there with your jaw dropped down to the floor, saying, “How did this happen?” I’m telling you how it happens.

When you hire professionals, hire professionals. Hire ones that are licensed, insured … And I’m talking insured all the way around. That they have commercial insurance on their vehicles, that they have a commercial liability policy in effect, and what the limits are. Don’t take anything less than a mil. I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t let anybody on my property for less than a mil liability. Because medical bills are outrageous. These doctors and hospitals, and I’m not beating them down, but it’s expensive. You know, if someone’s walking through your yard and they get hit by a rattlesnake, that’s a hundred grand right there. Rattlesnake bite, the average cost of treatment, $100,000.

So don’t be a victim trying to be cheap. Hire a professional that again, once again, has a million dollar policy for their liability. That they have commercial vehicle insurance. Because if they’re out with their private vehicle insurance and they run into your house accidentally or something or a barn or another car, whatever, and the insurance company finds out that they’re using it for commercial purposes and they’re not covered commercially, they’re not gonna pay it, and then you’re gonna be out. So commercial liability insurance, one mil. Commercial vehicle insurance, and worker’s comp. Worker’s comp is the most expensive one. And I’m gonna tell you, there’s very few of them out there that have it. Protect yourself. Protect your family, because if they sue you, and they go past the limits of your policy, they’re coming after you. And they don’t care if they take your car, your home, whatever they take. That lawyer is gonna take whatever he can to do.

So back to feral hog trapping. That’s the biggest part right there I wanted to get out, was just hire professionals that have all this, and don’t let them fool you on, “I don’t need workman’s comp, I’m exempt.” Because they might be exempt with the government, but they’re not exempt with suing you. Okay? Other thing is, hog work is not cheap. For professionals to come out and do it safely and efficiently, it takes a boatload of equipment, it takes a boatload of labor to get this stuff done right. And when you catch a hog, one guy going out jerking hogs out of traps ain’t safe. You really need two people. I mean there’s some guys out there can do it and I’ll give it to them, and they can do it safe. But the majority of people I seen out there trying to pull hogs out of traps, they need two people, I’ll be honest.

So it’s not cheap. It’s not cheap work. But the other hand is, the damage that these hogs are doing to lawns and agricultural property is not cheap either. You know, you get an inspector in there and they see that you’ve got hog feces in your crop for agricultural, let me tell you something. You just wasted that field, probably. I’ve heard of them coming and shutting down fields because of hog droppings out in the fields. You gotta be … They’re expensive. Hogs are expensive. They do expensive damage and they’re expensive to catch. But do it right, because going the cheap way is never, never, never the good way.

If you got any questions, 866-263-9453. Again that’s 866-263-WILD. Or hit us up on the web at wildlifetrapper.com. Y’all take a listen to that and think about it. Is your family’s future worth losing over a hog problem? Hope you all have a good one, we’ll talk to you soon.

Moles– What is the Best Way to Get Rid of Them?

Today I’d like to talk to you about moles. Eastern moles in yards, we get a lot of calls on them. They get up underneath the roots of a grass and they eat the young roots of the grass and plants. Their main feast is the grubs and earthworms, mostly grubs. I just wanted to talk a little bit about protecting your home from having moles, and what you should do if you do have them.

First thing we need to do is talk about preventing your yard from getting moles. Pretty simple thing is to treat your yard once a year with grub bait. Make sure that you treat it in a cooler part of the day where the sun’s not up, and put about 20 minutes of water on it. That’s going to prevent UV rays from tearing up the chemical, it’s going to get good and saturated into the ground.

Another thing you got to worry about is … I find a lot in these housing developments that there’s a swell between the two yards, and someone’s over watering. What happens is it makes it real moist, so these grubs are coming up to the top, the moles are getting in there, and so are the armadillos. You just got to treat these areas and watch your water conditions in those areas. We like recommending a chemical called trichlorfon, or Dylox. Bayer has it in a once a year grub bait, and that seems to work pretty good. About $20 a bag, a bag will do an average size lot in a housing development.

If you get moles, little bit of a different story. You’re going to need to trap the moles and get them out. Get those moles out, simply removing the food source once moles are established is not going to fix the problem. You need to not only [nich 00:02:43] the food source, but you need to nich the moles and get them trapped, and get them out. That’s a pretty effective way of doing it. Not real cheap, and the best thing I can tell you is, do not wait until they are a huge problem, thinking that one or two moles is going to go away. They’re not going to go away, and the more damage they do, the more damage your yard is going to have, and the more costly it’s going to be when you do call me to come out and get them.

A lot of times it gets in situations where we don’t even know where the moles are, because there’s so many mounds. So what we have to do is roll the yard, which is an added expense of taking a roller across the yard and smashing everything down, and then waiting a day or two to get these mole mounds to come back up and kind of get a location on where the moles are. Where we’re going in the yard are these feeding tunnels or these highway tunnels, and we have to get our bearings with that. A lot of times you incur a extra expense of rolling the yard if you’ve let it go too long.

Mole trapping is very labor intensive. You’re digging holes, into the burrows, into the tunnels, and placing traps in there so when you go to come back to check the traps, again you have to unbury them, check them, put the soil back on, and go like that. Very labor intensive, definitely costs more when more labor’s involved, so the quicker you get on it the quicker you’re going to cure a problem.

That’s about it. Dylox once a year, or trichlorfon. Pest control guy years ago, Don O’Brien, gave me that tip and it’s worked great ever since. Treat your yard with that once a year, that’s going to help prevent them. If you do get them then call us on the first onsights of them so you’re not spending more money trying to track down a whole bunch of different mole hills in your yard.

If you’d like for us to come out and give you a free estimate you can call us at 866-263-9453 or you can catch us on the web at wildlifetrapper.com. Hope this helps, and check our other podcasts and videos for other helpful tips. Have a good one.

For more information and a FREE INSPECTION/ESTIMATE Call 1-866-263-WILD or (941)729-2103. You can speak with a trusted professional. We would like to be your local expert and learn about your current situation. Call us now. We are the experts for humane wildlife trapping and removal as well as full property restoration, in Fishhawk, Bradenton and surrounding areas.

Bee Removal [Bradenton, FL]

Did you know there was such a thing as Feral bees? Listen in as Jeff explains…

Today I’m going to tell you about bees and what happens when you find a feral colony in your yard. A lot of times we get calls and someone’s like, “Oh I got a swarm of bees. They’re on the side of my house, they’re in a tree on a limb. They’re in a palm tree, they’re on a swing set. We’ve had them on gas pumps.”

The main thing to realize here is what these bees are doing and what needs to be done to the bees. When you have a feral colony coming through, a lot of times, they are what we call a transient colony. These bees will just go and pick a limb, a gas pump, a playground set, a picnic bench, a side of a house, what have you. And they will just rest there for maybe up to a couple days. They’re traveling, they’re tired, their little wings are tired, and they just kind of pull off the road and enjoy themselves for a few minutes or a few hours or a couple of days. They rest.

If they’re not going in and out of something, like they’re not going in and out of a block wall or soffit area, or not going in or out of a cable box, a water meter, a hole in the tree, something like that. Then usually, you’re fairly safe to say that it’s a feral colony. That’s just transient. Our suggestion is just wait a couple days. They’ll go away.

But if they do not, feel free to contact us to evaluate for you and give you a free estimate for Bee Removalin Bradenton.

Now we get the people who say, “Oh, I’m allergic to bees. You got to come out now.” That’s fine, we can do that. We don’t want to risk anybody’s health over it. But in all reality, we just need to kind of leave them alone and let them rest for a few minutes, or a few days, so to speak. Let them rest up and they’ll go about their way. They’ll just travel right on to their next destination.

It’s very common and we get calls almost all year round, unless it’s very cool out. We have calls almost week only this. That’s the best way to approach this is if it’s … You find a colony in your yard, on your home, and it doesn’t look like they’re going in or out, it looks like just a big ball of bees bunched up somewhere, it’s probably a transient hive and best to just leave them alone for a couple days and they’ll go on their own. Usually within 24 hours but I have seen them stay 48.

Hope this helps. Bees are on the decrease, we all know that and every little thing people can do can help keep the bees. Have any questions, give us a call,866-263-9453 or you can reach us on the web at WildlifeTrapper.com. Thank you.

For more information and a FREE INSPECTION/ESTIMATE call us at 1-866-263-WILD or 941-729-2103. We are experts at bee removal and property restoration. Thank you for supporting a local, family owned business.

Today I’d like to talk to you guys about the springtime, which we’re in right now, and babies and mating and all sorts of things that’s happening at this point in time. What brought me to this subject was yesterday, I removed a couple of black snakes out of a garage that were mating inside the garage. It just kind of makes sense to talk about this now.

At this time of year, the activity is going to be a little strange. Most of the possums we’re picking up, females, have got babies on them. You know that they are a marsupial, and they carry their babies in a pouch or hanging off their back or whatever things they like to do there. It’s kind of cute, hanging off of the back of a mama, when you walk up to the cage. It’s a good time to really try to get rid of your nuisance problems.Actually, you probably should have started on it a month or so ago, because what’s happening now is you’re having that many more to deal with. If you had one nuisance possum, now you maybe have five nuisance possums, full-grown in a couple of months. Right now is still a good time, like on possums.

Armadillos. When they have their babies, they always have four. Always. They’re always the same sex. These animals are constantly breeding and having babies in the springtime here, and it’s a whole lot cheaper getting rid of one armadillo than having to get rid of five armadillos. That’s always a good thing to try to keep up on and remove as soon as you can. Armadillo problems don’t go away. They’re here. You’ve got to capture them and remove them.

Springtime is also a time when you’re going out into your landscape and planting flowers and trimming things up and changing out the mulch and stuff. You need to be aware of your surroundings when you’re doing this, because there are snakes and there’s all different types of wildlife. Possums will just get behind bushes and stuff, and raccoons and rats, and all sorts of things like that. You want to be real careful, and pay attention to where you’re putting your hands. Try to wear some decent gloves that at least will prevent a scratch from an animal. Might not prevent a bite, but at least they will prevent a scratch. Take care. Stick a hoe or rake or something in there and move it around first before you go sticking your hands in things. It’s a smart thing to do. You wouldn’t reach your hand into a blind hole, and you shouldn’t do that when you’re doing landscaping, either.

Another thing I want people to understand about wildlife and landscaping is a few years ago, a lot of the agencies with the counties were preaching low water native landscapes. I get it on the water side of it. Great idea. Native landscaping is cool, but please remember when you have native landscaping, you’re inviting native wildlife, either for food or a place to hang out. When you’re doing lots of ground cover, you’re just making a rat haven, a snake haven, and all sorts of other creepy crawlies that are out there. You have to remember that.

Leaving lights on at night will bring insects in, and then that will bring in things like frogs. The frogs bring in snakes, and it’s kind of a vicious cycle. I’ve been to a house that looked like a murder happened, literally like a murder happened outside, from something killing frogs because they left their front porch light on. It was one of the bloodiest things I’ve ever seen. A lot of clean up, and they just couldn’t figure out what happened.

If you’re going to have native landscaping, expect native animals to be in there, and expect problems. It’s like if you leave your trash can outside, you’ve got to expect something to get into it. That’s a whole another podcast. With springtime coming and the babies are here, you’ve got to do your thing out there, but be safe about it. If you’re having nuisance wildlife problems, now is a great time, a great time, to get that stuff in, and get those animals trapped and removed if they’re giving you problems, so you’re not trapping twice as many, or more. The numbers they can grow to in a little amount of time is phenomenal.

As always, if you have any questions, you can give us a call. 866-263-9453. Again, that’s 866-263-WILD, or you can find us on the web at wildlifetrapper.com. Have a great day.

Welcome to the Wildlife Trapper Podcast

Welcome to the Wildlife Trapper podcast. Where it’s all about how to handle urban wildlife conflicts. What you can do on your own, and when it’s time to call a professional. Protect your home and loved ones with Jeff’s tips and tricks gained from over 20 years of encountering wildlife in every possible scenario. Here is with over 20 years of wildlife trapping experience from alligators to pythons. Your host Jeff Norris.

Hello I’m Jeff Norris, and I’m you’re host. I am The Wildlife Trapper. Today’s going to be our intro podcast to explain what our podcast series is going to be about. It’s going to be homeowner tips and tricks, it’s going to be some insight to professional services that we provide, and hopefully you just get a better understanding of dealing with urban wildlife and conflicts in your home or property. May it be commercial or residential.

For more information and a FREE inspection Call Nuisance Wildlife Removal at 1-866-263-WILD!

Hopefully these podcasts won’t be to long, be a few minutes so you can breeze through them. Have fun, get some good information from it, and make sense of maybe some problems you’re having, and pick up some ideas on how to treat them.

There’s always that thing that people think they can fix things themselves. That’s true a lot of times, but a lot of times you get into a situation it’s time to call a professional. Either for safety, health, or you don’t have the adequate tools, or learning curve to do it. Hopefully we can kind of bridge both those together and let you know when it’s time to call a professional and when it’s not and you can try to do it on your own.

A lot of things to think of when trapping and stuff on your own, and we’ll cover those in podcasts. Things you might not think of until it happens, and then you’re standing there wondering what to do next. Hopefully we can help you with all that. Again, my names Jeff Norris, I’m been trapping professionally for over 20 years. I’ve trapped most of my life. I really don’t like the term trapper, but it seems the most fitting. I am a wildlife removal specialist or professional. Again, 20 years of experience. I can’t think of to many things I can’t answer usually, but we do learn everyday even in this trade, and we’d like to share this with you.

Hopefully it’ll be an informative podcast for you. Thanks, and thanks for listening. You can check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and links will be in the end. Thanks.

For more information and a FREE inspection Call Nuisance Wildlife Removal at 1-866-263-WILD!

Hire a Specialist in the Industry

Today I wanted to talk about an interesting call we received last night at about 7:30 in the evening from a homeowner. What had happened, I don’t want to get into a lot of details of who, why or when, but what had happened was one of the big bug companies here in Florida, these … Let me go back a little bit. These customers have been hearing noises in their attic, so they call out a big bug company to find out what was going on. When they, the big bug company gets there, they sell them a rat job with exclusion and trapping, they charge them $500 to seal up the residence from invading rats into the attic, and $500 for some rat trapping. Well, about 7:30 that night things took a turn and the homeowner discovered that it wasn’t rats he had, it was a raccoon, and he needed someone out there right away.

For more information and a FREE inspection Call Nuisance Wildlife Removal at 1-866-263-WILD!

We send a tech out and the tech called me and he was just in total disbelief that this company would’ve sold these customers a rat job, per se, rat exclusion, rat seal up, when there’s absolutely no signs of rats, none. Not one dropping could he find in that attic, but on the outside roof it was full of coon droppings, raccoon droppings. My tech was like, “Why did they do this?” I’m like, “Well, it comes from a myriad of different things. One is experience, knowledge, having the right tools.” He goes, “Well, what’s even worse is, when they sealed this up they just used expanding foam.” They basically used probably $10 worth of expanding foam to seal up this house. He says, “It looks like crap and it’s not going to hold anything. It’s not going to keep anything out.” He tried to get the raccoon out for probably a good hour and a half and it was playing the game of in the soffit, out of the soffit, run down the soffit, go to the other way on the soffit.

In that point in time we just decided to ease up on the raccoon and let it have some space and do some trapping. This company … The moral of the story is this company sold these customers something they didn’t need and it was due to their inexperience, or the inexperience of the salesman, or the inexperience of a technician. If you see raccoon droppings right next to the entry hole, which as a matter of fact, is huge, enough to fit a basketball into, as opposed to, something to fit a golf ball into. If we have all this evidence there and they sell a rodent job, and why is that? I think a lot of it has to do with, like I said before, a lack of education, a lack of training, but I also have … A lot I think is pre-programmed. I even noticed with our techs sometimes that they get out on a job and we try to relay as much of the information from a customer to our techs as we can before they get out there.

A customer will say, “I think I have rodents living in my attic.” They get out there and it’s not rodents, it’s a raccoon, or a possum, or other types of … We’ve had ducks, Muscovy ducks in attics. They get so pre-programmed I think sometimes that, “Oh, well it’s rats.” That’s where I’ve had to talk to my office and tell them, “Just tell them they got noise in the attic, let them do the investigation, let them do the inspection, let them put the tools that we have on their trucks to work to identify the problem correctly the first time and let it happen in the natural way.” That way, they get up there, they see raccoon evidence, they see a raccoon entry point, they’re not seeing rat droppings in the attic, it’s a no-brainer for them. If you put, the homeowner thinks they have a rodent problem, then they’re pre-programmed for rodents. Rodents are stuck in their head, they just don’t … That’s part of the issues with it.

The other issues is these big bug companies are breaking in the wildlife field, because it’s extra money, extra income and I’ve seen some of them, they’ll come out and do a wildlife job … Well, they come out and attempt to do a wildlife job for free in order to steal the Sentricon termite contract from another pest control company, or to get them to sign up for monthly or quarterly or yearly pest control with them. These are a lot of the tactics that the big bug companies are using on the wildlife end. Hey, I don’t blame them. They’re out there, they’re trying to get more revenue and recurring revenue, which is the important part, but you got to think about the customer. I’ve been in this business 20 years and I believe in being honest and admitting if we have a fault to it. A lot of these other companies don’t. The funny thing was when he called his bug company back last night, they told him, “Well, we don’t have any on-call people, so you’re going to have to call someone else.”

For more information and a FREE inspection Call Nuisance Wildlife Removal at 1-866-263-WILD!

I thought that a little strange, but I’m sure that gentleman was on the phone this morning figuring out how he can get a refund. At least I would be. The moral of the story is some companies are more specialized in doing certain things. Sure, we all can kill bugs, we all can do termites, we all can do fertilization, we all can do wildlife control, we all can do all of this, but if you want it done right you want to find the people that are the most highly skilled in that field. Now, can we get rid of roaches and ants and stuff like that? Yes. Have we done clean outs? Have we done stuff where we go into daycares and got rid of problems with an integrated pest management approach that other companies failed, and failed, and failed? Yes. That’s really not our specialty. Our specialty is wildlife. We can do the bugs, and we do a good job at doing bugs, but at the end of the day this company was based doing wildlife.

That’s why we have the special ladders, the rappelling gear, the thermo imaging cameras, the inspection scopes, all sorts of stuff like that, that we add to our arsenal of tools almost on a daily basis. We find, I like to say, the new cool tool that really helps us out and gives us an advantage over our competitors and gives us an advantage over the bug companies. Like I said, bug companies are not bad and that’s not what I’m saying here. What I’m saying is, when you go to hire a company, hire a specialist in that field. You may or may not pay a little more, but let me tell you something, saving money is sometimes more expensive. As these folks found out last night. An emergency call is not cheap to come out in the middle of the night to deal with this. At the end of the day, they have our fees on top of the other company’s fees and if they would have hired us in the first place, I’ll be honest with you, that house would’ve been cheaper for us to exclude and trap and get rid of a raccoon, than what they paid the first company. We would’ve been less than $1000 on that job.

Now they’ve got a $1000 tied up with the bug company and they’ve got several hundred tied up with us for an emergency call. Just something to point out there I thought was kind of interesting. Moral of the story is, pick the person with expertise in the field that you’re looking for, not just the biggest ad in the phone book, or the biggest website presence, or stuff like that. Pick the people … Call them up, ask questions, “Are you insured? Are you licensed? What license do you have,” because … This is a whole separate podcast. Wildlife guys can be licensed under a couple different licenses here in Florida. Let’s just say, we’re not all created equal. That’s for another time. Do your research, do your research on who you hire, and get the most experience you can for your dollar. If you guys ever have any questions, feel free to call us.

Phone number’s 1-866-263-WILD. Again, that’s 866-263-WILD. We can get you probably the answers you need, if you just need some helpful advice, we’re here for that too. Hope everyone has a great day and look forward to seeing some of you guys on our social media and stuff. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all that stuff … Links are available on our website, www.wildlifetrapper.com. Again, that’s www.wildlifetrapper.com. We have some pretty interesting stuff at times posted on there. Have a great day and hope to hear from you guys.

With over 20 years of experience solving urban wildlife conflicts, call Jeff Norris, the wildlife trapper for all your nuisance wildlife problems, 1-866-263-WILD. Find us on the web at www.wildlifetrapper.com. Also, stay up-to-date with local wildlife issues. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/wildlife.trapper. We are your experts for the most humane and technologically advanced solutions to all your wildlife problems. Call now for more information or free inspection, 1-866-263-WILD.

Bats

I’d like to talk today about bats. A lot of misconceptions going around with how to get rid of bats out of your house. I just want to try to clear some of them up and clarify things, so you have a little bit better experience than what’s possible.

First off when bats leave at night, you can not just run out and seal the hole. It does not work. You need to have a valve or exclusion system put in place that’s up for up for a minimum of 5 to 10 days. Now you say, “Wow, five to ten days,” well the reason for that is is because the weather sometimes. You have to kind of start the clock over and make sure you get them all out because when they get cold, bats go into something called torper, it’s kind of like hibernation, and they don’t fly out, they kind of rest up and sleep. You don’t want to be doing bat exclusions when the temperatures are falling below 50 degrees, because it’s a waiting game. You got to wait until the temperatures come up. We like to give it five good days after the temperature is up, and then remove the valve or exclusion process and seal up the entry points.

Second thing is foam, I don’t even know where to start with foam. Foam has got to be the worst possible thing when it comes to wildlife control. Not only do they chew through it, they eat it, it obstructs their intestines and bowels and causes wildlife to die. It seems like every homeowner I go to has tried to fix something, they used foam. Stay away from the foam people. Spray foam, great stuff, stuff like that, it’s insulation. It’s used for filling gaps and cracks and weather tightness and so on and so forth. It’s not made to keep rodents out. It’ll keep insects out, but it’s not made to keep rodents out.

For more information and a FREE inspection Call Nuisance Wildlife Removal at 1-866-263-WILD!

Another thing I want to discuss is the timing of doing bats, from April 15th to August 15th I believe, is a maternal season, you are not allowed to exclude bats during this time. Why? Because they’re having babies, and they’re flightless, and they can’t do nothing. The babies can’t fly out. So you exclude the parents out, the mother bats, the maternal colony, you exclude them out and you got a bunch of baby bats in there, which have one bat per bat. Have one baby per bat, and they die and they drop down into crevices and walls and stuff and what we like to call the ooey, gooey syndrome because it’s nasty. I’ve seen $100,000 worth of damage to some condos because some gentleman that were on the board thought they knew more than the professionals, and it wasn’t covered under their insurance because they got a quote from a professional. They decided not to go on that route and do it themselves, and you know the insurance actually called us as an expert witness against the condo association. Because we went out, we told them what we needed to do, and they basically got cheap.

Bad things can happen. You have to replace drywall, studs, because bat ooey gooey seeps everywhere. Places you didn’t even know existed. In that case it seeped down from the top floor to the first floor. From the second to the first floor. It contaminated two, two condos. Actually many, but two as in top and bottom level. So don’t do that. If you don’t know what you’re doing, let the professionals do it like myself. It’s just much cheaper in the long run.

Bats, two different types that we have here is free-tail and the evening primarily. You see more free-tails as opposed to evening bats. Seems to be they’re much more prevalent in the Bradenton and Sarasota area. We find a few evenings up in Tampa, Brandon, Valrico area. For the most part we deal with a lot of free-tails. Types of things to use to exclude. They’re several products on the market, but you got to use the right ones and you got to know how to use them. It’s not something you can read a couple things on the internet and be like, “Whoop, I’m a bat expert.” It doesn’t work that way.

The other thing is there’s another great, great point and I will definitely do a podcast on this in the future, people reading stuff and becoming experts off the internet. It’s all well and great, but for the most part they’re reading information that is not conducive to Florida conditions. We have litters of raccoons 12 months out of the year in Florida. There’s a frost line that goes right about Brooksville across, and we have different species south of that, than they have north of that. Like they have flyers, we don’t have flyers. We have iguanas, they really don’t have iguanas. I’ve dealt with one flyer issue in 20 years south of Tampa. They don’t exist down here. What are some other things they have? Pocket gophers. You can go up through [inaudible 00:06:25] and you’ll see packet gopher mounds all over the place. You’re not going to see them here. It’s just in the conditions are not right for those species to be south of that line.

If you notice on the radar, morning weather shows on TV and stuff, you’re going to notice that. Bristol and that area gets colder than the Tampa Bay region a lot of times. It’s weird but that’s the way it is.

Back to the bats. Another thing is bat houses. People are like, “What if I put a bat house up, will they go to the bat house?” No they won’t. Not usually. They’re not going to leave your house to go there probably, very seldom does that happen. What happens is you’re giving more bats an area to come to. So you have the bats in your house, they’re each having one baby, and when that colony is getting too big, they need someplace else to go, okay there’s a bat house there. Bat houses are great, don’t get me wrong. I think that bat houses, if they’re manned properly, are one of the best ecosystem things out there. They kill thousands of mosquitoes which we all know carry the Zika virus and other things. I’m not downing bat houses, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not going to suck the bats out of your house to the bat house.

Second thing is biggest mistake people put up. People put up a bat house. They say, “I put this thing up and it’s been up here for years and I haven’t got any bats in there.” Well let me tell you a little trick. Get you some bat guano and rub on the inside of that bat house, with a pair of gloves obviously. Scent that bat house up. You’ll be surprised. Bats will start coming to that bat house because they smell the guano. That’s one of the things that attracts them to areas is other bats and guano. If they smell the guano, they figure it’s safe, and poof, they start using the bat house.

Bats are amazing. Most people will say they’re flying and getting in my hair. Normally when people get hit by a bat it’s because it’s avoiding another bat in flight, or the bats have collided and one them has come down and landed on you. That’s normally what happens. They’ll come close, but hey, their echo location is good. Its real good. I think it rivals some of the military stuff at times. Their echo location is some of the best out there. People are like, “Oh, they’re swooshing.” It’s really not. You’re putting out CO2, bugs are being attracted to you, and the bats are being attracted to the bugs, think about that.

Here’s another biggie and I want to take a minute to touch on it because a lot of people don’t understand. We come to a call that’s got bats in the house. Where you actually have free flying bats inside the house. Well I’ll be honest with you. If it’s been a child or an elderly person in that bedroom the bat was found in or seen in, or in that house I would go, I would suggest catching the bat by a professional, and having that professional get with the local health department and have it tested. Because from what the health department is telling me, they’re treating it like an exposure, because bat bites are so small. They’re not real noticeable at times. If you get a bat in your house, I would probably go through the system and let them get the bat tested and find out what’s going on. If it’s got rabies, then decisions got to be made about post exposure shots. That’s a big thing though. People die of rabies. It’s not a joke. The levels in bats are very high.

For more information and a FREE inspection Call Nuisance Wildlife Removal at 1-866-263-WILD!

Another thing I want to talk about is some of the pest control companies and wildlife companies out there scaring the living crap out of the homeowner with a term called histoplasmosis. Is it a concern, yes. Is it in your house, probably not. There’s not been one documented case of histoplasmosis in Florida coming from a house. Now I’ve heard of it up north in these old farm houses where they’ve just been there for years. I’ve heard of it in caves and stuff and different parts of the region, like Texas and stuff, but where there’s just millions of bats in there. But as far I now, and as far as what FWC is publishing, there’s never been a case of histoplasmosis from a residence. Them trying to sell all the miracle spray and stuff, it’s odor control guys. It’s not histo.

I have a friend that’s an eye doctor, let me back up a bit, histo comes in two forms. It comes in a respiratory form and an ocular form. Basically you can get in your lungs or you can get it in your eyes. Ocular histoplasmosis is more common than you think. I have a friend that’s an eye doctor and we discussed this one day and he says he sees it, but he mostly sees it from people up north. Ocular histo, I don’t know if FWC’s statement of no histo has been found in houses that’s been confirmed to transmission to humans is only respiratory, because that’s the worst kind or if it’s ocular too. Probably I’ll talk to the doctor over there at FWC and find that out. There is two different kinds. Ocular histoplasmosis and the type respiratory that you get in your lungs. Two things to be concerned with.

I went to a guys house two days ago, had rats in his attic, roof rats, and a company come out there and says that we won’t do the exclusion trapping unless you spray your house. Get sort of a pheromones, it kills all the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I’ll be honest, I don’t even think this company that’s putting it out there has got a license to be claiming it kills anything. Because there’s two types of licenses in Florida and again, that will be another podcast, but unless you have a pest control license, you can’t be claiming to kill stuff like that. Bacteria’s, and raccoon roundworm, things like that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you’re not licensed for it and allow it. We have customers that want it because they’ve heard so much about it and we sell it for pennies compared to the other companies. This company told this guy, “If you don’t do this spray, we’re not going to do your exclusion.” I’ll be honest with you, I sold this job for about $900 to a two story house excluded it all out and everything. The other company wanted $675 alone to spray it. $675, blows my mind.

Each person has their own way of selling and stuff and I get it, but do your research people. Don’t do it off wildlife trapper out of Texas or something. Go to universities, go to, like with bats, Bat Conservation International is a great source of facts and resources for bats there. Go to your state DNR. The CDC, these are people with trusted information. Again, I’ll talk about that in that podcast. We talked about getting misinformation off the internet. But for that, that pretty much sums it up. Get a bat in the house, treat it like it bit someone, get it tested. If you got bats in your house and you’re not sure how to deal with it, don’t risk it. Trust me, it’s a whole lot more expensive on the back end to do it yourself, guarantee it. Have any question or concerns, our website is wildlifetrapper.com and our phone number is 1-866-263-WILD. Again it’s 866-263-9453, have a great day.